Colin is dealing with the fallout that came from the revelation of the serial killer’s identity, Kelly is still studying the eruption, Marshall gets a girlfriend, Louise mellows a bit, Vanessa doesn’t and Rob is happy up in the boonies of Mane. There are no great climatic occurrences, life goes on after the eruption as people learn to work around the changes - uncertain power, not so plentiful food - and in many ways, go back to a low-tech existence.  There are no real earthshattering occurrences in anyone’s life. Things reach a conclusion of sorts with Colin’s life decisions but there is no cavalry appearing over the horizon to make things okay.

I wanted to know what happened to these characters. If Turtledove decided on another in the series I’d read it since I rather like the characters; well, not Vanessa so much but the others, but this book is not what one usually gets with apocalyptic science fiction. Basically, this is more a study of several people’s lives and how they met adversity and then got on with their lives than it is a sweeping science fiction epic. In fact, as the series goes on the eruption is more and more in the background and almost reduced to a minor inconvenience to the lives of the characters. ~~ Stephanie L Bannon

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